overnight delay containing either sleep or no sleep. During each session, subjects were instructed to focus on a screen that presented a scene image for a few seconds, followed by a few seconds of blank screen. They were asked to provide an emotion- rank from 1 to 9 for each scene. A session was complete after all 48 scenes had been viewed and ranked.


Reminders Can Stimulate Unwanted Thoughts


Phase two of the trial was a learning- and-testing phase in which the face-scene pairs were fully memorized by the par- ticipants. Phase two was completed after each of the 48 face-scene pairs had been correctly identified by each subject at least once.


A second identical test was adminis- tered to reinforce learning through "over- training," which ensured each participant would have trouble preventing scenes from intruding into their consciousness during the later "no-think" assessment phase. Finally, the intrusiveness of thoughts


was ranked by participants in the TNT as- sessment phase by pressing a key corre- sponding to one of three options -- never, briefly and often -- after each face cue was presented. This rating represented the subject's ability to suppress thoughts of the associated scene after seeing each face cue.


Sleep group participants were given an eight-hour sleep opportunity during the overnight delay, while no-sleep group


subjects remained awake in a university seminar room under the supervision of at least one researcher. At the time of the second affect-evaluation session, no-sleep subjects had been awake for more than 24 hours.


Fatigued Body = Tired Mind While those who had slept found it


easier with practice, the no-sleep partici- pants had a consistently difficult time keeping unwanted thoughts about the negative and neutral scenes out of their minds. No-sleep subjects reported nearly 50% more thought intrusions than well- rested individuals, demonstrating that sleep deprivation significantly impairs memory control. Sleep-deprived participants also had


significantly higher negative thought re- lapses than those who had slept, indicating that initial control over thoughts gave way to uncontrolled negative thoughts when reminders were later encountered. In sum- mary, a fatigued body correlated to less thought control overall. Researchers also tested whether sleep


deprivation affected the relationship be- tween thought suppression and resultant emotions and found that subjects who were able to effectively suppress negative thoughts also felt less negative emotion when those scenes were subsequently encountered. Researchers concluded by raising the


possibility that sleep deprivation disrupts control over those parts of the brain that support memory and emotional regulation.


Chronic sleep disturbance is a formal symptom of most psychiatric conditions, particularly those disorders that are char- acterized by intrusive thoughts, such as PTSD, schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (MDD).


Healthy Sleep Habits Cut Risk of Heart Failure Nearly in Half


Making small changes to promote


healthy sleep can dramatically improve your health and longevity, including lead- ing to a 42% lower risk of heart failure There is growing research linking


sleep habits with heart health. A healthy sleep pattern for most people, at least in terms of heart health, means seven to nine hours of sleep, little or no insomnia, no snoring, early bird rising and little or no daytime sleepiness. U.K. researchers studied 408,802 participants ages 37 to 73 and those with the healthiest sleep pattern had 42% less risk of heart failure overall. Heart failure risks decreased in early risers by 8%, seven- to eight-hour sleepers by 12%, infrequent insomniacs by 17% and infre- quent nappers by 34%.


In another meta-analysis of 474,684 patients, sleeping fewer than six hours or more than eight hours was tied to higher risk of developing or dying from coronary heart disease and stroke but those who slept more than eight hours also had higher total cardiovascular disease risks. Napping once or twice a week actu- ally helped reduce the risk of cardiovas-


Robinhood Integrative Health Bruce Lantelme, MD


Weston “Wiggy” Saunders, MD Elizabeth Bozeman, MD


Kelly Carpenter, NP-C • Christen Duke, NP-C Jenny Addison FNP-C • Gina Davis, FNP-C • Daniel Lackey, FNP-C 336.768.3335


www.RobinhoodIntegrativeHealth.com www. HealthAsItOughtToBe.com


3288 Robinhood Road, Suite 202 • Winston-Salem, NC 217106 MARCH 2021


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